Pragmatic relates to the contextual meaning of language and how it is used. It is not to be confused with semantics, which is the literal meaning of words and sentences. Pragmatics is a part of linguistics and philosophy that takes social, cultural, and situational factors into consideration. This is what allows us to politely hedge a request, cleverly read between the lines, and navigate ambiguity in conversation. It also enables us to understand why people don’t always say what they mean.
The term pragmatism was coined by philosopher William James in 1907. He defined it as “a doctrine that an idea is true only in so far as it works, and that the measure of truth is not logically but pragmatically.” Pragmatism is the philosophical movement which argues that ideologies or propositions are true if they work satisfactorily and that any ideas that don’t work should be rejected (Morgan 2014a). Pragmatism has had a significant influence beyond the world of philosophy, including law, education, politics, sociology, psychology, and literature.
For pragmatists, something is true only in so far as it has a positive impact on our lives or can be applied to real problems. For example, if a religion’s teachings soothe the soul and improve one’s mental health, it may be valid. The same would apply to other philosophies that focus on spiritual and psychological well-being, such as Buddhism or Christianity.
Although pragmatism’s popularity waned after Dewey, it has enjoyed renewed interest since the 1970s. Richard Rorty recast the pragmatist philosophy as a reaction against mainstream epistemology’s mistaken view of’mirroring’ reality, and this so-called neo-pragmatism birthed a number of liberatory philosophical projects, such as feminism (Seigfried 1996) and ecology (Alexander 2013).
On the other hand, the classical pragmatists saw a need to clarify and expand on the notion of ‘truth’ to avoid its being taken in too narrow a sense. In particular, George Herbert Mead and John Dewey developed pragmatist perspectives on the philosophy of science, education and human development. The pragmatist perspective on ethics was also influenced by pioneering African-American theorist W.E.B Du Bois (1868-1963). Other contemporary pragmatists include the philosophers of language James and Peirce, the cognitive psychologist William Grice, and a range of American and European writers on culture (see Korta and Perry 2013 for an overview). Their ideas have been further developed in the form of various theories of knowledge, action and experience by thinkers like McDermid and Flower, and reinterpreted in the context of neo-pragmatism by the philosopher of language Hilary Putnam and others.